Doyel: Pacers will lose without Paul George, but need to lose the right way

IndyStar sports columnist Gregg Doyel talks with Fox59's Tricia Whitaker about Paul George announcing that he will opt out of his contract with the Indiana Pacers.

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FILE -- Indiana Pacers forward Paul George (13) reacts after missing a three-point shot that would have ties the game in the final seconds in the second half of their NBA playoff basketball game Sunday, April 23, 2017, afternoon at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. The Pacers lost to the Cavaliers 106-102.(Photo11: Matt Kryger/IndyStar)Buy Photo

INDIANAPOLIS – The future of the Indiana Pacers, so muddied for so long, has become clear. Paul George is leaving, and when an NBA team has one great player and that great player goes away, that NBA team loses. And it loses big.

This is the future for the Pacers, but the news is not all bad. No, after 18 months of not having any control over what comes next – Does Paul George want to stay? What if the NBA media puts him on the All-NBA team? – the Pacers now are in control of their destiny. And they have a clear mandate on what they need, and what they do not.

The Indiana Pacers need assets. Not players.

Which means the Pacers need to lose this season, not because they’re trying to lose – tanking is such an ugly word – but because they’re trying to win as quickly as possible.

Winning this season? Not possible. Winning next season? Probably not possible, either. But if they handle their business right, they could start winning again in two years, maybe three.

Nobody chooses to be here, OK? But the Pacers are here. They are an NBA team with one superstar, and that superstar must be traded ASAP, and everyone knows it. Which means they have very little trade leverage.

Paul George’s value is far greater than whatever Pacers President Kevin Pritchard will get for him in return, so when Pritchard makes a trade that looks lopsided – a trade that will be lopsided – cut him some slack. Whoever acquires George from the Pacers will do so knowing he will become a free agent in one year, and that his preferred destination is the Los Angeles Lakers.

Ever tried to play poker with five cards that the rest of the table can see? That’s Pritchard, now. He’s holding a bad hand and he can’t bluff. Which means he can’t win.

But he can lose the right way, and by that I mean: not the Larry Bird way.

Larry, love him, hated to lose so much that it affected his judgment. As far as negatives go, that’s a pretty good one: He wanted to win so badly that it backfired. Larry chose to play for a bottom playoff seed each of the last three seasons, even in 2015 when Paul George missed the first 76 games with a broken leg, because he believed in creating a winning “culture.”

Meanwhile, successful teams in the NBA believe in creating a winning “roster.”

Paul George has been with the Indiana Pacers for seven seasons. Here are his honors and averages
Scott Horner/IndyStar

The Pacers have been mediocre for three years – combined record: 125-121 – and that was (mostly) with Paul George. All that mediocrity led to mid-level spots in the NBA draft, though Bird pulled Myles Turner out of his hat with the No. 11 pick in 2015.

That was the one year the Pacers were in the lottery. Because they missed the playoffs. Losing that season? Losing helped.

Losing sucks, but mediocrity is worse. It’s the hardest place to be in professional sports, because it gives no hope for the present, and little hope for the future. That’s been the Pacers for three years.

Kevin Pritchard can change that, but not with players. He’ll change it with assets, slowly, because he’ll be trying to remake the Pacers with one asset tied behind his back. See, today’s NBA marketplace is built around two primary assets, and the Pacers can use just one of them:

Draft picks.

The other coveted asset is a player with an expiring contract, which translates to space under the salary cap, which translates to acquiring stars in free agency.

We know the history. Stars haven’t come here in free agency, and they damn sure aren’t coming here for a rebuild.

So Pritchard has one play to make: Do it like the Boston Celtics have done it. Do it like the Philadelphia 76ers are trying to do it.

Acquire as many draft picks as possible, and use those picks to draft premium rookie talent (the 76ers way) or as trade bait to acquire premium veteran talent or, ideally, both (the Celtics way). One way to acquire a great draft pick: Lose. Another way: Get those draft picks in exchange for Paul George.

What it means for the short term: A trade for Cleveland’s Kevin Love, putting Paul George on the same team as LeBron James and Kyrie Irving as has been rumored, doesn't translate to Kevin Love playing for the Pacers. Or it better not. Because Love’s greatest value to the Pacers wouldn’t be a handful of extra victories. His value would be the one or two extra draft picks he could bring. See, as badly as the Pacers need a quality veteran today, what they need worse are the draft picks they could get by flipping Love (or another veteran they could get for Paul George) to a third team for draft picks.

In a perfect world, Pritchard eliminates the middle man and trades George directly for those draft picks. My man Grant Afseth, an 18-year-old Kokomo native who will attend Arizona State this fall and is one of those basketball junkies who gets the economics of today’s NBA, suggests trading George to Portland. The Trail Blazers own the No. 15 and No. 20 picks in the 2017 draft on Thursday night, and they have two great perimeter players, Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum, who could use a third star to become a formidable team in the Western Conference.

And as it happens, those stars – Lillard,McCollum – are on record as saying they would like Portland to add … Paul George.

Imagine the Pacers, who already have the No. 18 draft choice, with three of the top 20 picks in the deepest NBA draft in decades. They could find three really good young players and start the rebuild right away, or they could package two of those picks for a spot in the top 10 and draft a future star.

Whatever they get for Paul George — players or picks — it won’t translate to winning this season. The Pacers are going to lose today, and they are going to lose tomorrow.

They are about to burn it all down, clear the horizon of everything but Myles Turner, but the soil left behind will be fertile. From all that devastation, something beautiful could grow.